Black trim a feature of Georgian style

Simple colour palette lovely contrast to elegant architecture

Black and white is a crisp, classic combination any time of the year, but is particularly resonant during the winter months.

Photograph by: Handout photo
, Colin and Leona Van Buskirk

Dear Leanne: We are renovating our historical home and have decided to start with the kitchen. We would like to borrow some of the design elements from the Georgian style — such as the black-and-white colour theme — but want to add a twist. Rather than white baseboards we were thinking of painting them black, as well as the window and door trims. If we paint the kitchen trim black do we need to continue this throughout the home? And what about the doors? We will be replacing the flooring, cabinets and countertops and are open to suggestions on all.

A: The stately Georgian styled home design is a beautiful contrast between elegant architectural design and the simplicity of a black-and-white colour palette.

Black baseboards and trim can be absolutely stunning. I tend to use design rules as a guide rather than the law. If your Georgian home was to become a museum, accurately reflecting the design rules of the time period would be crucial. But today's decor magazines show that you can tastefully bend the rules and smudge the edges of history to create magnificent effects.

When deciding how to finish interior detailing, consider such factors as room size, ceiling height, natural lighting and whether rooms are visually open to one another or closed off with doors.

If you start to paint the trim and baseboards white in one room, you will likely find that continuing the effect throughout the house is necessary, particularly if you do not have a natural start and stop point. I have seen spectacular designs with window frames and doors painted black, while the base boards and trim remained white. The white door frame was an elegant contrast to the black door and kept the room balanced. The black window frame acted like a picture frame for the view outside. If you were to incorporate that look in your kitchen, a black-and-white tiled kitchen floor would be a stunning base with white cabinets. If you plan to incorporate an island, consider topping it with a black granite top and leave the remaining counter white. This is one unique but very effective idea.

Dear Leanne: I am repainting the interior of my home and had selected a warm grey and deep beige tone for various rooms. The question I have is transitioning different colours with rounded corners. Currently my home is all one colour — and I am beginning to under-stand why. Do you have any tips on painting with rounded corners?

A: This is a question that I am frequently asked and has been a source of contention for many homeowners that like to do the painting themselves. Rounded corners were recently introduced into housing design and offer many advantages over the traditional squared wall edged. They minimize the potential for paint to chip and they also allow rooms to effortlessly transition from one setting to another.

There really is no perfect solution for painting rounded corners, as there is no obvious start and stop place. Some painters choose to carry one paint colour through the curve until the wall changes to the new room. Although this works well when you are in the room that continues around the corner, the paint change is noticeable when you are in the other room.

Although you can apply painters' tape down the centre of the curve and paint each side of the curve, the effect rarely is seamless. How-ever, skilled professional painters have been known to tackle this challenge and create perfect edges.

Before you embark on this project, you must obtain an adhesive painters' tape that allows a secure edge (to control the paint from bleeding under the tape edge) while not damaging the surface it is adhered to. Talk to your paint supplier and ask about the best tape for this job. One last suggestion is to make the transition point for changing paint colour the inside walls, where there are obvious corners, and apply the alternate paint colour to the walls that share a corner. This way, rather than each room having its own individual colour, the grey and beige tones would be present in all rooms.

Leanne Brownoff is an Edmonton interior design consultant who welcomes your questions at leannebrownoff@shaw.ca. Answers will be featured in her column as high volumes prevent individual email responses. Also follow Leanne at Twitter.com/LeanneBrownoff.

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